About Me

Jim is the author of eight novels, three memoirs and four business books. He made a covered wagon and horseback trip across Texas to retrace the journey his ancestors had made two generations earlier and wrote Biscuits Across the Brazos to chronicle the trip. He traveled the team roping circuit as an amateur and worked roundups on big ranches. Working beside real cowboys sent him back to writing. Using lessons he had learned from more than 10,000 client interviews over thirty years and memories from his rural Texas roots, Jim published five novels in his Follow the Rivers series and three in the Tee Jessup/Riverby series. He has also published three memoirs and story collections.He has been a Writers Digest International Book Contest Finalist.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

CT and Me

Our friendship goes back twenty-four years, so recollections
and the exact sequence of events have grown fuzzy, but the character and
actions of my friend remain crystal clear.Telling a story about him is the best way I know to describe the man he
was.

“What the hell are you doing answering the phone there?” A
sense of relief spread over me as I recognized CT’s raspy chuckle. He always
made me laugh and I needed a good laugh. A sneaky constable had just served me
with lawsuit papers.

I could not manage even a chuckle. “Believe me, I’ve been
asking myself that same question.” I glanced at the papers lying on the table
next to the phone. It was not my office, not my table, not my phone, not my
chair, yet the process server had tracked me here.

CT and I had been friends about seven years back then. We
lived three hundred miles apart and could not have been more dissimilar, but we
hit it off right away. We had met while working as registered representatives
(stockbrokers) for the same broker-dealer. Those had been the good old
days—days before I took an inside job as vice-president of that BD—days before
things began to unravel.

There had been contentious stockholder meetings,
resignations, replacements, a new president, lawsuits and threatened lawsuits;
a friend of ours had been fired. What started out as bright and shiny had
become tarnished for CT and me. When they fired the new president, a man I had
come to respect, I resigned.

I knew a lot of other reps and they kept the phone lines hot
speculating about my next move. More out of curiosity and a haunting feeling of
unfinished business than anything else, I visited an old friend at his
fledgling BD and wound up spending the day, then the next. I had been there
about two weeks when CT called.

I asked him, “How did you know how to find me?”

CT’s voice still had a smile in it. “Just a lucky guess. You
staying there?”

“Seems too late to turn back now. People like you and me
don’t like to be told we can’t do something—especially by lawyers.”

Another throaty laugh. “I’ll call back when you really
decide.”

When he called back a few weeks later, I was president of
that tiny new BD. President of three people including myself. The throaty voice
laughed. “I see you’re still answering the phone. How are you holding out?”

The little triangle closet I was in had a metal desk and a
phone with a shoulder rest to ease the neck crick I was getting from talking
eight hours a day. We had been sued because we were competing, told to cease
and desist and had been warned that our phones were tapped and that private
investigators followed us everywhere we went. I did not believe that, and
besides, what did it matter now? I was neither happy nor invigorated about all
of it, but I had to be energized or lose everything I owned. “Hanging in there,
barely.”

“Got enough money?”

“Never enough.”

“I could float you a loan.”

“You can’t do that. You can’t even talk to me. I’m told our
phones are tapped.”

“How would it be if I came over and brought my clients?”

I waited a long time to answer. My heartbeat stepped up a
notch or two thinking of having my old friend with me again. Not only would he
make things more fun and interesting, but we also badly needed someone who could
generate revenues. And CT could generate revenues better than a slot machine.
“You know the answer to that, but I can’t ask you to do it. You know I got
sued. With your production and reputation with other reps and in the industry,
you will be, too.”

“Who was it said people like us don’t like to be told what
we can and can’t do?”

It’s a simple story to this point, one that some people
won’t see as significant. But CT knew its significance, and so did I. CT was a
major stockholder in the BD that was suing me. It made sense for him to go on
his merry, profitable way and stay where he was. We would still have been
friends. He really had no reason to come over, other than our friendship and
his trust in me.

Of course, CT liked the thrill of it all. The challenge. He
was willing to roll the dice, risk everything, and spend
who-knew-how-long-or-how-much defending himself and his family against a
lawsuit, all for the sake of friendship and to show folks that he was in charge
of his own destiny. Not many men left like CT.

He did join us; he did get sued; he did become our top
producer. Since CT’s integrity was beyond reproach throughout the industry, his
stamp of approval meant that many more reps would follow. He brought our
fledgling firm legitimacy we might never have attained without him.

There were other reps that were extremely important to our
success; reps with integrity and clout that I am proud to call friends and
colleagues; reps who showed courage and faith by joining a startup. They would
all agree, however, that CT was the catalyst.

When I discovered that he was not cashing his commission
checks, I called and asked why. He just said he figured we could use a little
float. I told him the checks were good, but he delayed cashing them anyway.
“Don’t need the money,” he said.

Next time, the rest of the story about CT and me and my apology to a good friend.